6 minutes ago, eslader said:

But, since I run a different atmospherics mod, do those clouds move, or are they static? Because a lot of clouds in KSP addons are static, and that's a whole lot easier to do than clouds that actually behave like clouds. 

I can't speak for the exact KSP implementation (I'm going to download it and try it out this weekend), but in general, rendering and weather simulation are separate. If you can create clouds that look this realistic, the same rendering techniques could be applied to a dynamic weather engine that drives convection, wind, and cloud evolution. The visual fidelity is independent of whether the clouds move or grow in real time — so in the case of MSFS, I think the answer should be, yes, if the weather engine allowed clouds of this fidelity to be rendered and lit accurately, then the underlying dynamic weather engine could be used to take care of the rest. I'm sure it's not trivial, but I think the principle is sound.

1 hour ago, Redge said:

I think a lot of people in this thread are potentially missing what I am trying to show here... Which is the way that the clouds are rendered. The lighting and realism of the rendering of the sky looks massively more realistic than any other volumetric clouds I've seen in games. Whether or not they work dynamically or their compatibility with a live-weather injector is irrelevant. First you figure out how the physics, lighting and shaders work to render the clouds in this way, then after that you decide how to generate the clouds using your underlying dynamic/live weather injectors etc.

These KSP clouds that I showed above, are a community add-on effort by a single person (who is probably the cloud rendering equivalent to the legendary, @Biology who got our MSFS2020 atmospheric lighting corrected and is behind the massive upgrade in XP12.2's weather and lighting). Take a look here to see his blog, and examples of what he has achieved.

Different game engines usetheres no  different ways of handling lighting and shaders etc, but, seeing as Seb, Jörg and co said in a recent livestream, that they are considering future upgrades to the weather rendering, then I'd say they should see if they can have a word with this guy, before someone else scoops him up, like Laminar did with Biology.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/true-volumetric-139879553

No doubt those don't look amazing.  But you need to add on the other layers of tht flightsim world that these sims don't have.  This is why clouds during tech alpha looked phenomenal and then were dummed down in subsequent SUs.  Too large of a fps hit.

DCS also has excellent clouds.  But up close the voxels cannot produce a super high detail instance of a cloud.  It's too costly on performance.

What I want is to fly through a cloud and be in a cloud...not some big,  white see-through fart....

8 hours ago, blueshark747 said:

Yea keep dreaming.....

Quite frankly, to me im not very wowed by these clouds. Unsure if it the over all structure of live weather clouds, or the massive chunks of super transparent puffs.

I would argue the KSP clouds def look more pretty though. But cant tell if its due to better shaders, or cloud structure.

 

Edited October 3, 2025Oct 3 by FedDriver

I prefer these:

 

 

Sorry UK folks, you'll not be able to see these since they are on IMGUR.

 

24 minutes ago, FedDriver said:

Quite frankly, to me im not very wowed by these clouds. Unsure if it the over all structure of live weather clouds, or the massive chunks of super transparent puffs.

I would argue the KSP clouds def look more pretty though. But cant tell if its due to better shaders, or cloud structure.

 

Yea that one KSP cloud formation/shader is cool to look at and compare to MSFS, but doesn't look better than anything MSFS2020/2024 is capable of imo.

 

Edited October 3, 2025Oct 3 by blueshark747

31 minutes ago, blueshark747 said:

Yea that one KSP cloud formation/shader is cool to look at and compare to MSFS, but doesn't look better than anything MSFS2020/2024 is capable of imo.

 

Yup, MSFS 2024 clouds still look much better.

1 hour ago, DD_Arthur said:

What I want is to fly through a cloud and be in a cloud...not some big,  white see-through fart....

Yes.  Back in P3D I remember you could look out the side window and see the wing fade out as you went through the clouds if you had the two ActiveSky addons. You can't do that in 2020 or 2024 - it's like there's a force field around your plane that keeps the clouds from getting too close.

On 10/3/2025 at 2:42 PM, Redge said:

I can't speak for the exact KSP implementation (I'm going to download it and try it out this weekend), but in general, rendering and weather simulation are separate. If you can create clouds that look this realistic, the same rendering techniques could be applied to a dynamic weather engine that drives convection, wind, and cloud evolution. The visual fidelity is independent of whether the clouds move or grow in real time — so in the case of MSFS, I think the answer should be, yes, if the weather engine allowed clouds of this fidelity to be rendered and lit accurately, then the underlying dynamic weather engine could be used to take care of the rest. I'm sure it's not trivial, but I think the principle is sound.

Except that you have to make the dynamic clouds look realistic. You can't just go from one cloud formation to the next, different cloud formation unless you just want it to look like a slideshow of weather. The cloud from formation 1 has to smoothly transform into formation 2 in a realistic way. 

That's one reason most KSP "weather engines" don't bother. Most of us spend most of our KSP time with rockets. You're probably doing Mach 1 within 30 seconds of launch. If you're going slow enough to see the clouds change, your flight is in big trouble and you won't notice them change because you're too busy noticing your rocket crashing. 

On 10/3/2025 at 1:23 PM, SayAgain said:

I prefer these:

 

 

Sorry UK folks, you'll not be able to see these since they are on IMGUR.

 

Sorry, I aleady saw them on live weather.

dd

 

Edited October 6, 2025Oct 6 by Sky_Pilot071

4 hours ago, Sky_Pilot071 said:

Sorry, I aleady saw them on live weather.

That was from my flight into Houston and exiting Houston.

Edited October 7, 2025Oct 7 by SayAgain

For the purpose of the feeling of speed when passing by, or entering the clouds, sadly the FSX/P3D textured ones are still the most convincing. These "volumetric" clouds nowadays just kind of lose all details when approached and as a result one ends up with a monotonic, gradual change of visibility.

I think that a combination of the otherwise awesome volumetric technology (when done right regarding the scattering, colors, ...), and textured cloud boundaries, would be a winner.